Looking for Demo recipe. Is it a black IPA

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vicratlhead51

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I bought Magic Hat's spring variety pack this weekend. One of the beers was called Demo and on the side of the label was a little post that said "IPA on tour". It wasn't a big hop bomb as far as flavor goes it was more roasty than hoppy but it had a nice hop aroma and was crisper than most dark beers I've had. I'm not sure if this is a "black IPA" or "cascadian dark ale" whatever people are calling them now but I loved this beer and want to brew something like it. I'm kind of middle of the road as far as ipas go, I don't like the hop bomb west coast style ipas but I do like the crisp and refreshing flavor of some of the more mellow ones. If anyone has had this beer or has a nice drinkable black ipa recipe let me know or point me in the right direction. I really want to try this style out but I don't quite have the chops yet to design a good recipe for something a little more complex like this.
 
I just had this. It had a bit more roast then I like in my black ipas. I know they are usually helpful to home brewers. Have you tried emailing them?

The website has
grain
Pale, choc, caravienne, carafa
Hops
Ctz, goldings

Og
1.056

IBU
45

On another note, if you have it available try the otter creek alpine black ipa. Excellent!

Good luck
 
I feel like kind of a dummy but no I didn't check the website. Guess it hadn't crossed my mind. That is some helpful info though. I think I might be able to work with that. I'll try emailing them too. I've got a couple real good craft beer stores a near me I'll see if I can find that otter creek alpine one you're talking about. I liked the roastiness in Demo though, almost reminded me of lightly sweetened black coffee.
 
I'm trying to clone this beer too - love the balance they got w malt and EKG aroma. I emailed the brewery a few weeks ago and didn't get a response. I had seen the ingredient overview on their web site but was asking specifics about % carafa, chocolate, yeast etc. But what they post is a good enough start. The only thing I am not sure about is the % on the roast grains. its odd they seem to spell chocolate wrong on the site ('chocalate') - and do they mean caravienne - or caramel and vienna?

http://www.magichat.net/ipa_on_tour/demo

Anyway I'm taking my best shot tomorrow, we'll see. Although I am generally more of a hop head and not the hugest fan of Magic Hat, this is a very well made beer and I'd recommend it. A restrained British black IPA.

I'd appreciate any thoughts or suggestions on the grain bill.
 
Oops I never got back to my own thread :eek: I plan on giving this a shot next weekend as long as time allows. I looked at the website too, the info they gave was useful but you're right they didn't give percentages which was unfortunate. This was the recipe I kind of made up from what I had it's an extract version for a 5gal batch:

1lb. light DME
6lb. light LME
1lb. Caravienne malt
.5lb. Carafa III
.5lb. Chocolate malt
1oz. Columbus hops@60min
1oz. East Kent Goldings@10min
1oz. Columbus (dry hop 7 days)
1oz. East Kent Goldings (dry hop 7 days)
WLP001 California Ale yeast

I wasn't sure which Carafa to go with but I figure the beer is pretty black and had a lot of roastiness to it so I went with Carafa III. I thought the California ale yeast would work great since it's kind of neutral, leaves the beer slightly sweet and seems to help showcase hop flavor. The amounts on the grains and the hop schedule are a total shot in the dark just based on the IBUs they had listed and what I'm hoping works for grains. If anybody has any input I'd sure appreciate it.:D
 
For what it's worth, I would guess the columbus is only used for bittering? Anyway here's what I came up with:

11 lbs MO
.75 lbs Vienna
.50 lbs Crystal 80
.375 lbs Carafa Special II
.25 lbs Chocolate

.75 oz CTZ 60 min
.50 oz EKG 5 min
1.50 oz EKG flameout

1187 Ringwood Ale
- cake from prior batch (But I bet the Am Ale yeast would also work well - maybe better since its so clean)

I'm definitely open to suggestions!
Brewing this tomorrow.
 
Yeah you're probably right about the Columbus, think I'll skip that dry hop addition, one less ounce to buy;). I see you're going with carafa II, any reason in particular? That was the other place I was stumbling when I was trying to make a recipe was just figuring out which carafa to use.
 
After much scientific analysis and soul searching, in the end I decided to go with the Carafa II Special because - that was all my local had on hand :p
 
Lol good reasoning on that one, I haven't brewed with carafa before so I'm not sure what mine has, I may end up making the same kind of decision
 
GIGAUNK's DEMO Recipe:

Caravienna might not be the easiest thing to find but I wouldn't try and sub it out. It's basically a specially 'crystaled' vienna with a Lovibond in the low 20s. For a pale ale you generally want 5 to 8 % 40L crystal. I'm guessing that becaust the caravienna is so much lighter that it'd be ok to go with a higher percentage. 1 full pound comes out at about 9.3%.

On my robust porter 4 oz of caraffa II gave it a bit more acrid flavor than I like (or tasted in Demo). 3 oz came out perfect in my porter, that's what I put in my Demo recipe. Just be careful to get the "special" caraffa II. It is SIGNIFICANTLY less acrid.

Even stouts don't use more than 4-9% chocolate! With 1/2 a pound of chocolate you get 4.7%.

demomagichat.jpg


The web site specifies an american ale yeast, doesn't get much more american than 1056.

There are a couple descrepancies from magic hat's website though. First off 1.057 (14 plato) would have to have very high attenuation to reach ABV of 6.0. And a color of SRM 50!? I doubt it. You would have to add another 1.5 pounds of the 412L special carafa2 to get a color like that. First off the beer didn't look that dark, and second that would be almost 16% of the grist! Besides the beer looked a lot closer to my recipes 24.4 SRM

I would definitely dry hop with 2 oz of EKG for at least 7 days. I'm a big fan of dry hopping with columbus so I might thow that in there dry too, but I'm on the fence as to whether it's a late addition in the original. I need to go find some more for a more robust tasting session!
 
Flat tasting my 3/27 attempt and the color and IBUs are pretty much perfect, but the dark malt is a little too pronounced. Next time I'll cut it down to 4 oz carafa and 2.5 oz chocolate(?) I think it could do with the loss of color - as mentioned above I don't think Demo is as dark as Magic Hat claims.

Either way I'll def dh this with at least 2oz EGK - the late hop character is lacking. Will check back in in a few weeks-
 
I recently had to have my gall bladder removed and haven't been able to tackle this one yet because of lifting restrictions. I've been doing a little reading and in midwest's hop rhizome pamphlet they reccomend trying columbus as a dry hop and in the most recewnt edition of How to Brew John Palmer suggested trying columbus as a dry hop so I'm going to go back to my original plan and dry hop an ounce of each type of hop. I'm thinking of going with the Carafa II and backing it down to 1/4 pound. hopefully I still hit that nice black coffee color still though. going to try brewing this sometime in the next couple weeks.
 
Flat tasting my 3/27 attempt and the color and IBUs are pretty much perfect, but the dark malt is a little too pronounced. Next time I'll cut it down to 4 oz carafa and 2.5 oz chocolate(?) I think it could do with the loss of color - as mentioned above I don't think Demo is as dark as Magic Hat claims.

Either way I'll def dh this with at least 2oz EGK - the late hop character is lacking. Will check back in in a few weeks-

When you say "too pronounced" is it bad? I love this beer but love roasted flavors. Think I will I be happy with your recipe?
 
When you say "too pronounced" is it bad? I love this beer but love roasted flavors. Think I will I be happy with your recipe?

I was wondering the same thing, is it more pronounced than the origonal or just too pronounced for your tastes because the roastiness was what I really liked about the origonal.
 
No by too pronounced I just meant it had slightly more roasted malt than Demo does - so not exactly on point as far as a clone recipe. But as far as a dry, roasty stout this is a good well-balanced recipe.

As for above comment about dry-hopping w columbus - I still think the citrus/pine you would get from an American hop like Columbus would clash with the malt profile in this beer. But don't get me wrong I love that varietal and dh with it all the time. My Pliny clone Piney Cone wouldn't be the same with out it!
 
No by too pronounced I just meant it had slightly more roasted malt than Demo does - so not exactly on point as far as a clone recipe. But as far as a dry, roasty stout this is a good well-balanced recipe.

As for above comment about dry-hopping w columbus - I still think the citrus/pine you would get from an American hop like Columbus would clash with the malt profile in this beer. But don't get me wrong I love that varietal and dh with it all the time. My Pliny clone Piney Cone wouldn't be the same with out it!

OK I see what you're saying about the dryhopping thing, it makes sense when you put it that way. I thought earlier that CTZ was being dismissed because its primarily a bittering hop. I'm actually a little thankful I'm gimped up right now since it's slowing me down enough to get this recipe fine tuned before I attempt it. I really did like this beer and want to get as close as I can. I like the roasty flavors but the crisp bitterness will make it nice and refreshing in the warm weather coming up.
 
Yeah I think I'll do another batch with the tweaked grain bill - would really like to nail this one as I liked it and don't usually go for british IPA's. On top of that they're no longer selling it! Demo has run its course and the new IPA on tour is Blind Faith, which is about as mediocre as they come in my opinion.

Just checked the Magic Hat web site and they've chaged the ingr. list for Demo (also corrected spelling of chocolate - which was bugging me!!)

Grain: Pale, Carafa, Caramel, Cara Vienna, Chocolate
Hops: Apollo, Goldings, Amarillo
Yeast: California Ale

So based on that I've tweaked my clone as follows:

11 lbs MO
12 oz Crystal 60
8 oz CaraVienna
4 oz Carafa Special II
2 oz Chocolate

.75 oz CTZ 60 min (as sub for Apollo - since I've got it on hand)
.75 oz EKG 5 min
.50 oz Amarillo flameout
1.25 oz EKG flameout

.50 oz Amarillo DH
2.00 oz EKG DH

Chico ale yeast
 
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